


Aftertaste

by tacosandflowers



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angry Sex, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Post Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 23:23:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4498695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacosandflowers/pseuds/tacosandflowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Clarke came back to Camp Jaha after three months away, Bellamy was so angry at her he could barely see straight. Which is why it made no sense when, a week later, he was making out with her up against a tree.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftertaste

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first canon fic, and it's not a happy one. I think S3 could go a lot of different directions with Bellamy and Clarke, and this is but one interpretation. Inspired by the way Bob and Eliza have been talking about resentment and issues between their characters, and by an S1 gif set that reminded me how much I love the tension between these two when they fight. Thanks to crystalkei for holding my hand as I wrote canon for the first time, and for performing beta miracles late on a Sunday night. Apologies in advance for any emotional exhaustion you may experience as a result of this fic.

When Clarke came back to Camp Jaha after three months away, Bellamy was so angry at her he could barely see straight. Which is why it made no sense when, a week later, he was making out with her up against a tree. 

 

It’s not that he wasn’t relieved that she came back. No, he was incredibly relieved to find out she was alive, because he’d worried about her while she was gone, like he had every time they’d been separated on the ground—after the drop ship fire, during the time he spent inside Mount Weather. He knew the drill. It was infuriating, worrying about a person who always seemed to choose the most worrisome course of action, but he didn’t really have a choice. 

 

This separation had been longer than the others, and had been starting to feel permanent. His entire body felt a weight lifted from it when he first saw her again and realized his worst fears weren’t going to be realized. But that feeling was quickly replaced by a rage in his belly at the sight of the woman who’d left him at the gate all those months ago, when the weight of it all had finally been too much and she’d gone away. He was relieved, but now that he understood she was alive, he had the emotional space to recognize that he was also filled with anger and hurt. 

 

Which, again, is why it was so confusing when his teeth knocked against hers and he was pretty sure one of them was going to draw blood as they kissed, that’s how urgent it was.

 

She’d been back for a week and it had been bad. They’d been fighting a lot. He resented her for the fact that she got to escape the pressure and he didn’t, and that she got to come back now, waltz back into everyone’s lives. He doesn’t know how to act around her, how to work with her, but he has to, because they need the knowledge she gained while she was away to help them make decisions and she can’t _not_ try to take charge of every situation. That was just Clarke, forcing her way into decision-making processes whether she was officially in charge or not. 

 

But he was actually one of the people in charge here now, running things with Kane and Abby and the other remnants of the Ark leadership. It wasn’t a system he liked, but he had to work with them to keep everyone safe. And after months of tension, they’d finally settled into a rhythm where they were actually starting to get things done. 

 

Which meant when Clarke came back and started challenging things, Bellamy fought her on it. They fought like they had fought when they were first on the ground, glaring at each other to see who would back down first, sometimes arguing loudly while onlookers gaped, other times hissing at each other quietly in a corner. Every day after she came back seemed to culminate in a battle of their wills in some form or another. 

 

The day they ended up against the tree was no exception. A discussion about a proposed hunting trip in what Clarke thought was sketchy territory was veering quickly into raised voice territory. But this time, Clarke reached out and grabbed his arm in the middle of the argument and started heading for the front gate.

 

“What the fuck, Clarke?” he asked as he let her drag him along, at first because he was too surprised to resist and then because he really wanted to finish this fight.

 

She marched him right through the gate, spitting at the guards that they’d “be back in a while.” She let go of his arm after that but it still felt like she was touching him as she stalked to the edge of the forest and into the trees, not stopping until they ended up in a wood-cutting clearing. 

 

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Bellamy?” she yelled as she spun around to face him.

 

“You dragged me all the way out here to ask me that?” he yelled back. 

 

“I wanted to talk to you without an audience. You’ve been a complete dick to me the entire time I’ve been back, and I’m sick of it. I know we’re better than this. _You_ know we’re better than this,” she said. 

 

“Better than this?” he asked incredulously. “How am I supposed to know anything about what we are, Clarke, when you’ve been gone for months?” 

 

They hadn’t had this fight yet, the real fight between them. 

 

She let out a frustrated sigh, but he spied a flash of guilt in her eyes as she asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“You left,” he said. 

 

He didn’t go into how much her leaving had hurt him. Because it had _really_ hurt him. Up until the point when she’d walked away, one of the few constants in Bellamy’s world had been Clarke. In a world where new threats continuously emerged, a world they still knew basically nothing about, Clarke had been something he could count on. She made a lot of unpredictable choices, sure, and she drove him crazy even as he felt the need to be right by her side, but she was a constant. As long as they were together, the world was a little less terrible. 

 

And then she wasn’t there anymore, and the constant was gone. He’d had to figure out how to readjust his expectations and his ways of dealing with the world, because it wasn’t like the problems all went away now that the Mount Weather threat was gone. Life went on. She wasn’t there. It sucked, but that was reality. 

 

When she came back, that didn’t make her the constant again. He didn’t know how to deal with this Clarke, the one he hadn’t seen in a longer span of time than he’d ever been around her in the first place. She looked different, harder, her skin darkened and her hair bleached by the sun. She seemed to contain a world of secrets from her time away, an entire part of her behind some kind of wall. Some of her behavior was recognizable—it even felt like they could slide easily into a few of their old patterns when they weren’t arguing—but other times she got a look in her eyes that he’d never seen before, and he had to remind himself that he didn’t really know her anymore. 

 

“I know,” she said in response to his reminder that she’d left him, which a petty part of him felt the need to keep pointing out. He knew she felt guilty, he’d seen it in her eyes ever since she came back. And it somehow infuriated him even more. 

 

 “You left, and I have been here the entire time, working my ass off to keep these people alive and well—which you asked me to do—and keep your mom and Kane from making stupid decisions,” he said, walking closer to her, as she fixed her blue eyes on his. 

 

“I get that you’re angry, Bellamy,” she said finally, “but we have to learn to work together again, for everyone’s sake. This fighting? It’s childish.”

 

Bellamy bit out a harsh laugh at that. “Neither of us has had the luxury of doing anything childish for a long time. This fighting is happening because you showed up again and you refuse to listen reason. ”

 

“ _I’m_ the one who refuses to listen to reason?” Clarke said, and then shook her head with a sigh. “We both know this isn’t about the hunting trip. This is about us.”

 

“You want to talk about us,” he replied, more of a statement than a question. 

 

“We have to,” she said, frustrated. “I thought we would sort things out by now, but clearly… I just don’t understand. We used to be a team. We did a lot of things to survive together.” 

 

“We did,” he replied. “And I’ve kept doing things so everyone can survive. And you were out there doing whatever it was that you needed to do, so excuse me if I’m fucking exhausted and not throwing a party in honor of your homecoming.” 

 

This is where things started to get more confusing. He was all ready for a shouting match, but Clarke licked her lips slightly, drawing his unwilling attention to them. He doubted it was on purpose, but it happened nonetheless. He was jarred out of his anger and reminded of the single most infuriating thing that had occurred since Clarke came back, which was his realization that while he was extremely bitter towards Clarke, he also couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to taste her.

It was pretty inconvenient.

 

He’d always found her attractive, a fact he was aware of from the day they found the bunker with the guns and she was suddenly beautiful and it wasn’t just because they were high on jobi nuts. She’d grown on him from there, each seemingly-impossible problem they faced framing her in a new, ever more awe-inspiring (and, if he’s being honest, terrifying) light. And while he’d been hiding inside Mount Weather, waiting inside the vents for the coast to be clear, a secret part of him had even played around with the possibilities of what they could be to each other if they succeeded in their mission and had actual time to be normal humans. Time to have a drink, time to actually laugh. 

 

They’d never gotten the chance, of course. And then, by the time she came back, he thought he was over it. So it was an unpleasant discovery when he realized that being angry with Clarke didn’t preclude the fact that he _wanted_ Clarke, with a physical need he hadn’t had time to feel before, and he couldn’t just pretend that it didn’t exist. He swore to himself that he wouldn’t get attached again. He couldn’t.

 

“I needed to be on my own, and I know you’re upset with me for that,” Clarke said about her leaving, and his gaze followed the words on her lips. 

 

In an ideal world, he could simply not care, and tell her to fuck off, because she’d burned him and he wanted to hurt her in return. But it wasn’t an ideal world, it never had been for them. And instead he was having trouble not looking at her mouth, which had been a problem lately. How he could be so angry with a person and simultaneously want to kiss her so badly, he had no idea. 

 

And he hated that he wanted kiss her, so he lashed out. “I’m more than upset,” he snapped, finally meeting her eyes.

 

“Well you need to get over it,” Clarke snapped back. 

 

His temper flared as he stepped even closer until she was almost backed up against a tree at the edge of the clearing. 

 

“You had me wrapped around your finger before you left, you know that?” he asked, his voice full of emotion as he let his real thoughts come to the surface. 

 

“Bellamy—“ she began, her eyes betraying her confusion at where he was going with this, but he cut her off.  

 

“I don’t know how, especially given the way things started between us, but you did it. I would have done _anything_ for you. I backed your decisions, I took your orders. I thought we were in it together. But you left, Clarke, and that’s not how it is anymore,” he finished, a blaze of triumph running through him as he got it off his chest.

 

Clarke’s eyes flashed with hurt and regret before she pulled some steel back into her gaze. “So how is it now?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.  

 

“I have no idea,” he said, “except that being around you drives me up the fucking wall.”

 

It really did. Half the reason these fights had been erupting was because he had no idea how to act around her when he wanted to throttle her and make out with her in equal measure. It had been easier to keep it in check back at camp where they were surrounded by people, but there was nobody else out here at this time late in the day.

 

When he saw her tongue move against the inside of her lower lip as her jaw assumed a stubborn set, he knew it was over. He reached with one hand to pull her to him and leaned in to capture her angry mouth with his. She stiffened in shock at first and then it was like a switch flipped and she was right there with him, and they tangled into each other. And that’s how they ended up against the tree, Clarke’s back pressed into the trunk as Bellamy surrounded her. The initial surprise of the kiss had dissolved and been replaced by a back and forth that was almost like a competition to see who can devour the other first.

 

It was messed up, really, given that they’d been fighting just moments before. Both of them seemed to grasp what was going on at the same time and started to separate.

 

“What the hell was that?” Clarke asked as she pulled away to catch her breath, her eyes cloudy as she stared at him.

 

Bellamy just stared back at her because he had no idea how to answer that question. “Fuck if I know,” he said eventually.

 

They were still up against the tree, and he had one hand planted on the trunk behind her while the other detached from where it had fisted in her hair. Clarke’s lips were swollen and glossy and the way her chest rose and fell with her breath drew his attention to her breasts, which had always been a distraction, and would probably always be a distraction. Her green shirt was cut lower than was practical, which was typical, another thing about her that had driven him crazy since day one.

 

“You used to make sense to me,” she said, her voice soft, almost shy as she looked up at him. “But you don’t anymore.”

 

“I hate to break it to you,” Bellamy said, his hand moving down around her waist to pull her closer as he leaned in, “but not a lot of things make sense anymore.” 

 

_Not that they ever really had_ , he thought to himself. 

 

“I didn’t know that’s what you thought about how things were before. And I didn’t… I didn’t think you looked at me this way,” she said, shivering slightly against him. 

 

He couldn’t help but laugh harshly again, his breath stirring her hair. “Trust me, I wish I didn’t look at you this way. My life would be a lot easier.”

 

And then they were kissing again. Her hands had been resting lightly against his chest, and she skimmed one up tentatively until her fingers dove into his hair and pulled him even closer. He wasn’t quite sure what to do, because she seemed to be just as into this kissing thing as he was, and he hadn’t really expected that, so he kept kissing her because it felt really fucking good.

 

It was like all of the energy he’d been channeling into being mad at her was focused on where their bodies now met, seeking the answers he had’t been able to find otherwise. It was a mix of anger, and heat, and need, and he knew it was a terrible idea but he also couldn’t stop. Their bodies were pressed close now, and he dove for her ear the next time they pulled apart while her fingers scratched against the back of his neck and sent lightning bolts down his spine. 

 

“This is probably a terrible idea,” he growled, voicing his thoughts aloud even as his hips sought friction with hers.

 

“Probably,” she growled back, her hands moving over his back and down to his waist. 

 

“It would be easier to fight with you if I didn’t also want to fuck you,” he said against the skin of her neck beneath her ear, breathing in her scent.

 

She pulled his hips into hers at the sound of his words and he heard her take a deep breath as she used her fingers in his hair to guide his head back until she could meet his eyes.

 

“So fuck me, and maybe you’ll stop being such an asshole,” she said, her eyes sharp and challenging.

 

He stared at her for a moment, waiting to see if she was sure, but she seemed pretty goddamn sure, her fingers tugging at his belt loops. It was scary how easily the passion from their fighting transitioned into this storm of sexual tension, which he wasn’t sure how to label. But he also wasn’t overly concerned with understanding it all at that point, given that he was definitely thinking with his dick.

 

He crashed his lips into hers again and pulled her away from the tree, one hand tangling in her hair while the other reached down to grab her ass. It fit nicely in his palm, as he’d suspected it would, and she moaned into his mouth slightly as he squeezed. The sound sparked a sudden need to know the texture of her bare skin. This was never going to be delicate, so he reached clumsily for the hem of her shirt and tugged upwards until they had to break the kiss again so he could pull it over her head. 

 

Her hands flew to his shirt and she did the same to him, and soon they were standing in the clearing, facing each other, taking in the sight of the other topless. Clarke’s bra was old and worn and didn’t quite fit, which was incredibly hot, actually, the way her flesh threatened to spill over the edges. 

 

He stared at her, because he’d wondered for a while what she would look like without a shirt on, and he wasn’t disappointed. She got impatient after a moment, closing the distance between them so she could get her hands on his belt, which she started to undo with determination in her eyes. His hands grazed over her breasts and he hooked his thumbs under the fabric to tug it down, letting out a huff of breath once her nipples popped free and yeah, okay, that’s the view.

 

“Fuck,” she breathed out as he pinched her nipples, and she reached behind to unclasp her bra and get it out of the way. 

 

She went to work on her own belt next and once it was loosened she looked around, assessing their options—it was the tree or the ground, he didn’t care which, really. He looked down at her, her breasts bared to the forest and to him, her pants sliding down her legs to reveal her black underwear, and he felt his dick throb in anticipation. 

 

He drew her back to him and kissed her again, the feel of her bare chest against his finally satisfying his desire to feel her skin and of course it was intoxicating, of course this was fucking him up in more ways than one. When they reached the tree again, she stepped out of her pants and her boots and jumped up—he caught her immediately—wrapping her legs around his waist. 

 

Tree it was. He backed her against the trunk for leverage and managed to shove his pants and underwear down far enough to free his cock, which she immediately reached for. 

 

“Dammit, your underwear,” he murmured as the head of his cock slid against the fabric.

 

Clarke’s eyes flashed wickedly. She mumbled something about problem-solving and guided one of his hands with hers to yank the crotch of her underwear to the side. He got the memo quickly, curving his fingers until they found her entrance and shoved two inside, causing her to gasp. She was surprisingly wet already, and he pumped her a few times with his fingers before pulling them out and running his hand over his dick as he lined it up with her pussy. 

 

He slid into her roughly as his hands gripped her ass and she cried out in pleasure, triggering his own deep groan of satisfaction at finally being inside her. He began to move, and Clarke’s hips moved against his, everything he’d been feeling since she came back seeming to come to a head all at once. They maintained eye contact as they fucked, her fierce gaze on his, and he couldn’t tell anger from lust anymore, it was all just a blaze of physical and emotional uproar. It was almost too much, but he couldn’t look away and neither could she. 

 

He thrust into her again and again until she leaned her head back against the tree, her face wincing in pain, and he slowed down.

 

“This tree is digging into my back,” she said. “But I have an idea.”

 

She unwrapped her legs and slid down his body, which required him to pull out, but he immediately saw what her idea was as she pulled her underwear all the way off before turning away from him and leaning forward until her arms rested against the tree. The sight of her bent over, naked, beckoning him to her, seemed to make his cock move of its own accord, and he ran his hands over her ass appreciatively before sliding into her from behind, pulling her hips until he was as deep as he could get. 

 

Clarke let out a breath as he filled her, and he began to thrust again, the muscles of her back bunching as she braced herself against the tree to meet his movements. His hands started out anchored on her hips, but he let them roam over her body to catch her breasts, and good god did he love this idea of hers. She cried out with each thrust, and he could feel her heat around him as she climbed toward an orgasm. She had her fingers on her clit and he joined her there with one of his hands, a motion that made her gasp as the pressure increased and soon she was coming on his cock, her muscles tightening around him in waves as her legs wobbled, tempting him to come too.

 

It was better, he thought as he held her up while she rode it out, that he couldn’t see her face while she came. It was better because this was angry sex, this was a quest for relief from a cycle in which they were stuck. Seeing her face, making eye contact with her… he’d tasted just enough of that before they’d switched positions to know that those things made the lines too blurry. It was better like this. He pumped into her a few more times as she went through the aftershocks of her orgasm and he knew he was about to tumble over the edge, too, so he pulled out and came on her back, his seed spilling across her skin. He felt, for the first time in a week, some measure of relief from his feelings.

 

He was also more confused than ever. He allowed his hands a moment to linger on her body before he pulled them away, pulled himself back to a place where he felt safe from the unknown.

 

“You had to make a mess, didn’t you,” she said as she straightened, her legs firmer now, but her voice didn’t hold any real irritation—he thought he might have even detected a slight smile on her face. 

 

“Sorry,” he said as he looked around for his shirt. “I figured that was probably a gamble we shouldn’t be taking.” 

 

“You’re right,” she said as she cleaned herself up. “That’s definitely not a gamble we should be taking.” She started to get dressed then. “I, um… I didn’t expect that.” 

 

It fully dawned on Bellamy as he watched her that he had actually just had sex with Clarke Griffin. He’d imagined it before, in several iterations, but none of them were like this. None of them involved feeling so… alive. Of course, he’d never really imagined them fighting their way into sex, either, so he wasn’t sure he could have predicted any of this.

 

“Neither did I,” he said as he fastened his pants. 

 

“Honestly, I needed that,” she said as she pulled her shirt over her head. “I forgot what it was like to just… feel, like that.” 

 

He wasn’t quite sure what to make of her words, other than that they tugged at a dangerous part of his mind. He reached out to pull a stray leaf from Clarke’s hair, their eyes holding a silent conversation for a moment before he looked down. 

 

“Happy to be of service,” he said, knowing he sounded distant, but he needed distance in that moment, he couldn’t just gaze into the abyss like that with her. He could see her eyes shuttering again.

 

“What were we arguing about before this happened?” she asked.

 

“You were telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to hunting territory, which is a goddamn insult and you know it,” he replied. He noted that he was still mad about the hunting fight, but that the sharp stab of underlying anger he’d been feeling for the past week had faded substantially. A fight was still a fight though, and he knew they both had trouble resting until they’d proven their point.

 

Clarke leveled her gaze at him. “We need to sit down with the map again so I can re-explain the contested territorial boundary agreements I was telling you about. Maybe you’ll actually listen this time, now that we’ve gotten that out of our systems.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, echoing her words from earlier.

 

“That was the point, right?” she said. “You can’t stop being angry at me, we can’t stop fighting, maybe fucking each other will solve something?”

 

He let out a breath. His effort at creating distance between them had succeeded, because she was pissed now. “I don’t know, Clarke,” he said, unable to do anything but be honest. He really didn’t know what the point was, other than avoiding all their problems by losing himself in her for a few brief moments. Like he’d said, probably a terrible idea.

 

“Well, when you figure it out, let me know, because you’re sending some pretty mixed signals,” she said, and she turned to walk back to camp.

 

“Clarke, wait,” he said, grabbing her arm. “I don’t want to keep fighting like this, but… It really fucked me up when you left, okay? I don’t know how to be around you anymore.”

 

“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes filled with sorrow. “For leaving you with such a burden. I don’t think I’ve really said that to you yet.”

 

She hadn’t, and he couldn’t think of how to respond to her, so he just nodded and mumbled, “Um, yeah, you haven’t.”

 

They started walking back towards camp together, remaining silent as they walked until Clarke spoke.

 

“I missed you,” she said suddenly, spilling the words as if she’d been working up the nerve to say them. 

He stared at her incredulously. 

 

“You just… you understand things nobody else can,” she continued. “I know things are different now, but do you think you’ll ever be willing to try?” 

 

“Try what?” he asked, his heart beating heavily at her words in spite of himself. 

 

“Try to be friends again,” she said, her eyes betraying her vulnerability. “And try to work together again. You and I, we argue, but we want the same things for our people. I know things are mess between us right now, but we’re good together when we aren’t fighting.”

 

_We’re also apparently good together when we’re fucking,_ he thought. Things were a mess between them, she was right, and sex had probably just made them messier, but it was too late now. He heard her, though, and he knew she had a point. As much as his bitter side hated to admit it, they were good together. And she’d _missed_ him. 

 

He was quiet for a while as he debated how to answer. “I can try,” he said eventually. 

 

He saw the relief in her eyes even as she fought to keep her face composed. It wouldn’t be instantaneous. He still had some things to deal with. But he knew deep down that, in spite of his complicated feelings about Clarke, he wanted this to work, them getting along again. Somehow, between the fighting and the sex, they’d managed to actually talk a bit about what had happened between them, and that was a first. 

 

“It’s a start,” she said, facing him as they reached the gates with a tentative smile on her face. 

 

The wired structure opened to let them pass through, and they stood just inside for a moment, the air between quiet as they didn’t know quite what to say. A lot had happened in an afternoon. 

 

“I’ll, uh, see you at dinner I guess,” Clarke said eventually, and walked away. 

 

"Okay," he replied to her retreating form as he watched her go, the sway of her hips taunting him already, and he was unsure how he felt about everything that had just happened, but he at least knew they were moving forward towards something better than the miserable state of the past week. Things certainly weren’t perfect, but for the first time, it felt like they might turn out okay, eventually.

 

_It’s a start,_ he thought as he walked back to his tent, repeating her words. _It’s a start._

 

_The End_


End file.
